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Powerwall 2 and Integrated Solar
- donclark 10y agoAre the solar cells and powerwall shielded by any kind of solar storm? I couldnt find any detailed information confirming or denying it. I would not like for any of us to be in a situation where the 1st solar outtage is our most damaging, and thats what causes any producer of electronics to adopt labeling and marketing for it.
- hliyan 10y agoRadiation spikes caused by solar storms 1. Are not in the visible spectrum 2. Do not reach the earth surface in appreciable amounts
- cyphar 10y agoSolar storms don't reach the earth, one of the jobs of our atmosphere and magnetosphere is to protect us from it. So there's no point in making protections against it for solar panels on the planet. Not to mention that coronal mass ejections (CME) happen so often that you'd expect to have already heard of such power outages if one were possible.
- rjdevereux 10y agoSounds great, I'd like to see the assumptions in the financial model that show how it is cheaper than conventional roofing material.
- rch 10y agoIt's difficult to beat the cost of the usual raw materials, so they need to exceptionally long lifetimes. edit: even with the cost savings from power generation, the roof itself needs to last forever.
- greglindahl 10y agoNote that what he said is that the solar roof plus the electricity that it generates is cheaper than a conventional roof. The up-front cost is higher for the solar roof. So, yes, there are assumptions in there: how much power can be generated, how valuable will it be 10 years from now, etc.
- toomuchtodo 10y agoYou also now get a 30 percent tax credit to replace your roof. Before, you'd be entirely out of pocket for the roof, separate from the solar install.
- secabeen 10y agoThis is big. My roof cost nearly double what my solar installs did, and getting the tax credit on the roof might have paid for the additional cost of the solar tiles over standing seam metal. (Not that I don't love the metal; it's awesome.)
- mrfusion 10y agoLooks amazing! I wonder how they get wired together? How are they attached to the roof?
- swampthinker 10y agoSolar panel roofing tiles have been around for a long time. I wonder what this will do different? Pricing? Or perhaps they are relying on brand strength alone. Edit: I understand the urge to downvote because I'm not singing praise, but I promise I'm not trying to be overly pessimistic or critical of what Tesla is doing. Fact of the matter is, solar tiles have been done before, and failed miserably.
- mrfusion 10y agoI didn't know that. I thought they were always in an r&d phase before.
- robotbikes 10y agoFrom my research they have never really been competitive to the point of getting any traction in their installation. They cost a lot more and provided a lot less power compared to standard panels. This seems promising especially if it is available so that it can be installed directly by home owners.
- chongli 10y agoThe price of PVs has fallen by multiple orders of magnitude in the past half century or so[0]. This is a staggering change! [0] http://blogs-images.forbes.com/peterdiamandis/files/2014/09/price-history-silicon1.jpg http://blogs-images.forbes.com/peterdiamandis/files/2014/09/...
- toomuchtodo 10y agoGreat comparison of solar price decline along side other fuels: http://i.imgur.com/GCy6EVx.jpg http://i.imgur.com/GCy6EVx.jpg
- mrfusion 10y agoWhat is henry hub?
- ifhs 10y agoBrilliant. Can't wait to order one. Wonder when it will ship since I was planning on reroofing next 4 months or so.
- greglindahl 10y agoNot for a while -- he said next summer, starting in California. And all 4 styles won't be available at start.
- jburgess777 10y agoIs there a summary for anyone that doesn't want to sign up?
- andrewtbham 10y agohttps://electrek.co/2016/10/28/tesla-solar-roof-powerwall-energy-solution/ https://electrek.co/2016/10/28/tesla-solar-roof-powerwall-en...
- sabertoothed 10y agoYou can also watch it on the SolarCity website (somewhere halfway down). Without registration. http://www.solarcity.com/ http://www.solarcity.com/
- amluto 10y agoI have no particular desire to sign up just to watch the video, but I hope that the Powerwall 2 is compelling enough to beat out the LG Chem RESU. For reference, the RESU is a wall-mounted Li-ion battery meant to be connected to a solar inverter. It seems to beat the Powerwall in basically every respect. It's a bit cheaper, it has a better warranty, and it has slightly lower advertised capacity but higher warranted capacity under basically all advertised conditions. But it's not cool and doesn't have a shiny video.
- hyperbovine 10y agoPeople are willing to pay a premium for nice looking stuff that works well together. cf. Apple.
- givinguflac 10y agoWhere is the premium here?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- l33tbro 10y agoYou can just give a dummy email and the video will load immediately.
- annerajb 10y agoTesla version integrates the inverter and has double the capacity(14kwh) for the same cost as LG Chem REsu 9kwh version One 14 kWh Powerwall battery $5,500 Installation and supporting hardware starts at $1,000
- mateus1 10y ago14/9 is not double.
- 10y ago
- andrewtbham 10y agothe cool thing is that they look good... they look like a normal roof at the angle you would see from the street in front of the house, but from above... from the angle of the sun they are transparent and you can see the solar cells. I know some rich people that want solar but their neighborhood associations won't allow it, but I don't think they would not have an objection to these roofs. they look really nice.... I have been curious how they were going to compete with cheap chinese solar. this seems like a good strategy but one that may be easily copied.
- option 10y agoIn CA, it is illegal for HOA to block solar installations
- toomuchtodo 10y agoAlso in Florida, surprisingly.
- gregpilling 10y agoAnd Arizona.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- iamcreasy 10y agoWhat is HOA?
- LeoPanthera 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeowner_association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeowner_association
- smokeyj 10y agoJust google it. I'm getting tired of seeing so many low effort comments. I used to come here to be informed..
- revelation 10y agoDirect 1080p video link: https://uhsakamai-a.akamaihd.net/sjc/omega/vod/sjc-566a4ba6-8cb9-4eef-9ff4-f91aa8d13adb/84771680112000/96870994920000/plain/improved/1/chunk_NUMBER_84a103284c.flv Replace NUMBER with 1 to 190 or get the playlist: http://pastebin.com/raw/YeNr726v http://pastebin.com/raw/YeNr726v
- alando46 10y agoAny idea how much power these things put out when compared with a conventional solar setup? 1:1? .5:1?
- ChuckMcM 10y agoThat was my question as well, this from the Techcrunch article: "The current versions of the tiles actually have a two percent loss on efficiency, so 98 percent of what you’d normally get from a traditional solar panel, according to Elon Musk. But the company is working with 3M on improved coatings that have the potential to possibly go above normal efficiency, since it could trap the light within, leading to it bouncing around and resulting in less energy loss overall before it’s fully diffused." Which suggests that on a square footage basis it is similar. The difference being that on a manufactured panel the cells are all exactly next to each other with no seams, and with the Tesla roof they appear to have a moat around them that varies a bit with roof tile style. That said, assuming you cover your entire roof which will include both "ideal" south facing (or north facing in the southern hemisphere) and "non-ideal" north facing parts of the roof you may get enough additional generation from the extra tiles to push it over a more 'traditional' solar install.To be honest I'm thinking about replacing my perfectly fine (if nearly 15 year old) solar panel set up with those roof tiles. That and a couple of power walls and I just might be able to go 'gas only' with PG&E.
- mrfusion 10y agoNormal shingles have a lot of overlap right. Wouldn't most of that moat be the overlap?
- taysix 10y agoYou're right. In the second tile he shows it look like 60-70% is just the moat.
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y agoreplacing my perfectly fine (if nearly 15 year old) solar panel I wish someone near me would do this, boy would I snap up those second hand panels. When I was in my early twenties I put together a solar panel + charge regulator + inverter + laptop and run a web server serving a page detailing the setup it was running on. The entertaining things I could get up to with 1kW or more of cheap second hand panels.
- starchild_3001 10y agoMusk & co changing the world one step at a time. I used to be a Tesla sceptic. Not anymore, having owned one and witnessed the relentless improvement in battery tech.
- starchild_3001 10y agoThe video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRqSkR4ENAg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRqSkR4ENAg
- usaphp 10y agoCorrect me if I am wrong, it estimates 12,000$ for a single day of energy backup of your home? For 12,000$ I dont mind staying one day without electricity.
- yessql 10y agoYou are wrong. You can have multiple days. But normally you would use this to arbitrage electricity prices, especially if you don't have net metering.
- wernercd 10y agoIf you generate more electricity than you use during the day, you all of a sudden don't have an electric bill... or a drastically reduced one. The funny thing about solar... it's not constant. Half the day is night... then clouds/rain/etc. 24/hours of electricity is for those dry periods.
- usaphp 10y agoBut my electric bill is like $30-40/month, Why would I want to shell out $12,000 for something that will become old tech in couple of years like the 1 powerwall.
- daok 10y ago30-40$ is probably a very small apartment. A house (2 levels) in Quebec during winter can go easily around 500$ because of the constant heating required.
- usaphp 10y agoBut you won't get much solar electricity during winter in Quebec anyway would you?
- cstejerean 10y agoCooling a house during the summer in Texas can easily cost the same amount if not more, and you get a ton of sun during that time. The point is that for single family homes electricity does not usually cost $40/month.
- foobarqux 10y agoI thought Straubel said that the Powerwall was meant not for offpeak storage but for emergency backup.
- toomuchtodo 10y agoThat Powerwall was of a different chemistry, and has been discontinued. EDIT: This is a baller feature: "Always Connected: Monitor your solar energy use in real-time and receive alerts when Powerwall is preparing for cloudy or severe weather." They're performing weather forecasting, and then ensuring the Powerwall has charged up for a possible outage event. Brilliant.
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoI cannot imagine what preparation they could be making. Surely the default process is to charge the powerwall at all times if feasible. What extra operation could it do in the event of a bad weather forecast? Other than tell you about it.
- yessql 10y agoSometimes you discharge. You may decide to not discharge ahead of a storm. If it were just backup, it would be easy, but sometimes you want to consume your storage to save money, or sell back to grid, if you have time of use pricing, or get paid for grid service.
- mikeash 10y agoAt peak generating times, it may be valuable to sell your stored energy to the grid. If bad weather is coming, you might not want to do that.
- extrapickles 10y agoTo get better lifetime out of the cells, you don't fully charge them. I bet when bad weather is occurring soon, it charges to maximum storage capacity, not to max cycle level. This lets you have best of both worlds, with a minor tradeoff in unpredictable outages you have slightly reduced runtimes.
- intrasight 10y agoFor $3000 this would be easy to justify just to keep my computer and network operating. I work at home and our power goes out too frequently. Is usually just for 10-20 seconds and my UPS takes care of that. But sometimes it is out for several hours - I'll say several times per year. If I can't work, I can't bill.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y agoWhere are you seeing $3000? When I set it to 1 Powerwall it tells me: One 14 kWh Powerwall battery $5,500 Installation and supporting hardware starts at $1,000 Total estimate $6,500 Requires $500 deposit for each Powerwall
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoHm for that price I can install a natural-gas generator. Have power for days if necessary, full power on all circuits.
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y agoWhich still ties you to the 'grid' insofar as you need the natgas supply chain, even if you have a huge reservoir you'll eventually run out. Having said that, batteries and solar panels don't have an unlimited life span either. I'm looking at buying a petrol powered generator for reasons other than home power generation, but it will be reassuring to know we have backup power at home, but I don't think I'm allowed to store any more than 25L in one container on my suburban property. I guess that would be 25L plus each of our two cars with full tanks. It would be fairly trivial to convert a petrol powered generator to run on propane from the barbecue gas cylinder, I've had experience installing gas kits on carburettor engines in cars.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- mrfusion 10y agoIs anyone else having trouble with the tesla website? - bunch of words are in a different language and the prices are in a foreign currency.
- dghughes 10y agoAs much as I like the idea after reading about the Note 7 and then a battery fire at DARPA I'm not fond of a giant battery lithium-ion battery in my house.
- stomato 10y agoThe problems with those batteries are that cell phones pushed the limit such that they were dangerous due to thin walls between part of the battery(ies), and hoverboards didn't keep batteries from overcharging, which causes a chemical reaction forming spikes that penetrate the thin walls between the parts of the batteries that cause fires. The batteries tech itself is not a problem; it's the design around it. And if you think this is bad, just wait until batteries get more powerful and there are problems. Be thankful that it only starts a small fire!
- kbaker 10y agoLithium-Ion technology is pretty well-understood at this point. Just remember that there are 10s or 100s of Billions of Li-Ion batteries around the world, and having a single one fail catastrophically is still enough to make headlines...
- bluthru 10y agoTesla has lots of experience packing cells with their vehicles. I would trust them to get it right. Also they have much more space to work with versus a phone. I wonder how the safety of this will compare to gas: http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/qctimes.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/6/0d/60df924a-2d13-11e2-9e1f-001a4bcf887a/50a16fd2b72d1.image.jpg http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/qctimes.com/cont...
- onesun 10y agoAny idea why the solar cells aren't packed more densely? It looks like there's a lot of wasted space on due to a square cell centered on a rectangular tile.
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y agoFrom when I was reading more about solar cells I recall there being something about the distance from the conductor (the two stripes visible equidistant from the midline of the cell) being a problem especially with monocrystalline cells, which these appear to be. I think this was more a problem for cells that had the conductor fixed to the back of the cell. Google image search for monocrystalline solar cell and you'll see they are all square. I had a brief go at searching for anything to back up my claim but lost interest. I might simply be that the silicon ingot they are cut from is cast round, see this[1] picture and it's less wasteful to cut a square with chamfered corners than to cut a rectangle, which would necessitate an ingot with an elliptical cross section, which would probably be harder to cast due to uneven cooling, maybe. 1. http://www.tindosolar.com.au/learn-more/poly-vs-mono-crystalline/ http://www.tindosolar.com.au/learn-more/poly-vs-mono-crystal...
- extrapickles 10y agoI'm not sure you can even make a mono crystalline ingot eliptical. The process heavily relies on spinning the ingot while pulling it out of a silicon puddle which results in the round shape.
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y agoI've had a few moments recently where I've thought "how can it be I haven't thought to look this up on YouTube before now", and here we are. I found this[1] video that explains how to grow a monocrystalline silicon ingot that weighs 440 pounds, and you're right it is spun as it's extracted from molten silicon. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWVywhzuHnQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWVywhzuHnQ
- anexprogrammer 10y ago
- AndrewKemendo 10y agoI signed up for the original powerwall and as it turns out it's not Tesla - it's solarcity (I get it, they are the same now). Oh and by the way you have to have the solarcity solar panels installed and running for the powerwall to be installed, which has a cost of it's own. My guess is that this isn't any different given this text: Powerwall 2 is a battery for homes and small businesses that stores the sun’s energy and delivers clean, reliable electricity when the sun isn’t shining.
- v0rts 10y agoWhat are your thoughts on the first gen powerwall and solarcity?
- nickparker 10y agoPowerwall makes a whole bunch more sense for solar storage. If you're just using it for backup power off the grid, you have to convert AC -> DC -> AC again for use. I don't know the all up efficiency of that system, but it's far from great. Probably <70%
- n17r4m 10y agoThe specs list it as 90% efficiency round trip.
- zappo2938 10y agoSomeone posted a link about Boston.gov being released as an open sourced project on GitHub. I'd like to take a moment to point out that this Tesla website is built on Drupal 7 too. The big thing that both websites get out of the box is i18n support for translation on top of all the tools required from content management. I wouldn't recommend it for websites and services that need many people to constantly update content but to build static pages that are cached is pretty awesome stuff.
- manav 10y agoI haven't looked into it yet, but I'm curious about using utilizing my Teslas in case of emergency for power. With 75kwh+ each (leased so no concern about cycles) I don't think I'd need a powerwall at home.
- martin_bech 10y agoThey would have more than enough power, but you cant pull power out of a Tesla. That would make supercharging to good of a deal.
- Roritharr 10y agoNever thought of a Tesla as a driving bucket of electricity.
- chadcmulligan 10y agoIt's a thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid basically use all the car batteries as grid storage while they're sitting around
- antmldr 10y agoMusk and JB got asked about this (I think at the 2016 AGM?). Their response was basically "yeah we get asked this a lot; No, because of the make up of the cells makes them inappropriate for the number of cycles."
- jrv 10y agoThat, plus they said that you'll often want to use the car at the same time as someone else uses electricity in the house.
- semi-extrinsic 10y agoIf you're concerned about emergencies: for $38 you get a self-contained LED camping lantern that lasts for 30 days on a single charge [1] at the lowest brightness, or 2 days (off at night) on full brightness. For a tiny fraction of the price of a Tesla-based emergency power solution, you could buy two of those for every room, plus an RV cooking gas burner and a big propane tank that covers heating, making food and hot water for washing. Hell, even a big diesel generator would be cheaper (not to mention it's readily available). [1] https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Survival-Technologies-30-Day-Lantern/dp/B00DUPV60K https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Survival-Technologies-30-Day...
- Animats 10y agoThe thing is cloud-connected, remote-controlled by Tesla. That presents a problem. Will the cloud service behind it last the life of the system? Most cloud services evaporate within five years.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- conductr 10y agoSame thoughts on every IoT, smart, connected, app enabled gadget
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- rsync 10y ago"The thing is cloud-connected, remote-controlled by Tesla. " If your use-case is backup power in case of utility failure, how does that work ? If utilities fail, the network connection to the battery may also fail, right ?
- dangrossman 10y agoRight, so you won't be able to use an app to monitor your Powerwall while it's offline... the battery's still going to work. Backup and off-grid are advertised use cases. Tesla's cars have the "cloud-connected, remote-controlled" stuff too, but they don't stop in the middle of the road if you leave cell phone coverage.
- Animats 10y agoThe nominal product life is 5,000 charge/discharge cycles, or 13-14 years if solar powered. Maintenance monitoring, including battery deterioration, is remote, from Tesla's end. Will that service still be running in 2030?
- jameshart 10y agoInteresting to see Tesla of all people estimating energy consumption on the basis solely of how many bedrooms your house has, and not adding on how many electric cars you need to charge...
- pizza 10y agoBedrooms generalizes better for new customers. ...additionally, who's to say a Model S isn't a bedroom in your garage? /s
- seanlinmt 10y agoIs the patent for Powerwall v2 available somewhere as well? As per https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you? Just windering if it contains enough info for anyone to built a unit themselves.
- toomuchtodo 10y agoThe software is the special sauce. You could build your own PowerWall easily: it's just a battery box. The battery management system is the hard part.
- davej 10y agoIt's not just a battery box. There's some pretty advanced liquid cooling and an inverter in there.
- keyle 10y agoIt looks so cute with its 110kg (220lbs)...
- Fej 10y agoHow long are the batteries going to last? With phones, we expect the battery to deteriorate after a couple of years. This is an investment. Will it need to be replaced in a few years' time?
- samcheng 10y agoTesla automotive batteries have shown pretty strong resilience over the few years they have been running, even on cars that have been driven hard. Cars are at >90% capacity after 50,000 miles. It's not like the batteries need to be replaced frequently. http://i.imgur.com/nWM9ZrS.gif http://i.imgur.com/nWM9ZrS.gif I wonder if these Powerwalls will have the same sophisticated battery thermal management system as the cars?
- sfblah 10y agoHouses and roofs last far, far longer than cars. 50k miles is 4 years for many drivers.
- samcheng 10y agoRight, but the question was about the batteries, which hang on the wall in the garage. Nobody has the expectation that such an appliance will last the lifetime of the house. Solar panels also degrade, roughly 1% per year, and commonly have a 20-year warrantee. That is less than the 30 years a good roof will last, but in the same ballpark. I doubt anyone knows the long-term resilience of these solar-panel-tile-roofs, but it's unlikely that they will have the extreme longevity of the clay tile roofs they imitate. In the right climate, those clay roofs can last a hundred years!
- mbrock 10y agoTen year warranty at least.
- will_hughes 10y agoThe problem with phones is that they don't have good management - the battery doesn't have active cooling, or heating when needed. They're also charged to full capacity or depleted to empty a lot of the time. These things are what kills battery life.
- newman314 10y agoI'm interested in both but could not find any details what kind of output a solar roof would generate. Also, I would be interested in know if it's possible to walk on top of a solar roof. People still need to be able to get on the roof to do work.
- Tinyyy 10y agohttps://www.tesla.com/solar https://www.tesla.com/solar For people like me who missed the solar roof.
- whage 10y agoThanks! Can someone tell me what kind of architectural style does that house on the landing page represent?
- return0 10y agoMuskhaus
- pseudometa 10y agoContemporary
- dsr_ 10y agoThat's a Modernist house. Flat cantilevered or overhanging roofs, large expanses of glass, right angles, no attics, rare basements. Concrete and engineered wood as preferred building materials. It's called Modernist, but the style is nearly 100 years old.
- Tyr42 10y agoOh, and if you are interested, here's a chart of them all: http://www.blogarama.com/home-garden-blogs/320928-inspired-home-ideas-for-passionate-blog/6094107-most-popular-iconic-design-styles-over-years http://www.blogarama.com/home-garden-blogs/320928-inspired-h... Or one big image: http://mentalfloss.com/sites/default/files/p-americanhouses_fpo1.png http://mentalfloss.com/sites/default/files/p-americanhouses_... I think it almost feels like the deconstructionist modern style (bottom right)
- zo1 10y agoYou got 4 different answers. Something just isn't right with that: Modernist Deconstructionist Modern Style Muskhaus Contemporary
- andreyk 10y agoHis argument about the solar roof starts by equating the situation to how Tesla started out - electric cars were slow and ugly and needed to be sexy and cool to be attractive, and the same is true for solar. Except I highly doubt this is true here - do people really mind the look of typical roof-mount solar? My impression is that the upfront cost is just too high and cost recoup is just too slow. The argument for the solar roof is then 'using a solar roof in the first place = way cheaper than installing on top of existing roofs (and also it looks as good and works better)'. Maybe? I'd like to see the quantitative argument here. Having a house pre-built with a fancy solar roof AND a powerpack seems like it would still be pretty much for rich people. Still, maybe the aim is for a similar trajectory as Tesla - start with a product for rich people, make it attractive, lower cost so everyone can have it and WANTS to have it. Unrelated: gosh, I like the content of the video presentation but it would be nice if Musk was a slightly better presenter.
- nixarn 10y agoEvery time Elon presents something we have this coversation. I for one love listening to him talk compared to say the presenters at Apple and Microsofts recent event. He's genuine, doesn't feel like a salesman, talks about the reasoning and science behind it all in a great way.
- davidivadavid 10y agoThe content of his presentation is always interesting. The delivery is always incredibly awkward and cringy.
- nixarn 10y agoI dont agree. Not cringy and awkward, but human and real. Who cares if he stutters and doesn't bring a polished salespitch. And he's nerdy for sure, but why have it any other way. Also the few jokes thay occur are typically funny as they are genuine and not silly jokes practiced before hand like Apple seems to like.
- 10y ago
- Loic 10y agoQuick question for the people living in the US (Target customers of the Powerwall). What is your yearly power usage? On the website[0] they put for sizing 10kWh/day/BR. Which means 14600kWh/year for a 4 bedroom house. Here in Germany, working from home with a 4BR+office house, we are using 2550kWh/year. So, I suppose the Tesla sizing is to support a "peak day" usage, but still, I am surprised by the calculations. This is why this totally informal and unscientific survey :) [0]: https://www.tesla.com/powerwall https://www.tesla.com/powerwall
- jacquesm 10y agoThe big difference is because of air conditioning and baseboard heating, two things that are relatively rare in Europe.
- j1vms 10y ago> The big difference is because of air conditioning and baseboard heating (...) Which makes you wonder why there is not as much high-profile attention on A/C (and to a lesser extent electrical heating) as being a problem worthy of rethinking by Silicon Valley (perhaps even ahead of solar, in North America).
- jacquesm 10y agoThere is quite a bit of work being done on solar powered airconditioning. I experimented myself with this about 10 years ago using two back-to-back Stirling engines with the first powered by the sun and the second being run in reverse to cool a working fluid. It's an interesting field, you'll learn more about Carnot cycles and thermodynamics than you ever wanted to :)
- chmike 10y agoA climatization using DC current from capacitors charged with solar panels might be more interesting in mild hot regions. If I understood well AC is optimized for carrying current on long distance with minimal loss. But most electric devices use DC. They need an AC to DC convertor with some energy loss. Solar panels produce DC and is usualy converted to AC with some loss. Then, in most electronic devices, this AC is converted back into DC in the device power transformator. What waste of energy. Shouldn't we do something about this ?
- Uptrenda 10y agoYou can buy 12v 250ah deep cycle AGM batteries from China for around $5 per battery -- lets assume another $15 for world-wide shipping. These kind of batteries would have around 3kwh of storage per battery but since you shouldn't discharge them to more than 50% lets also say that you need to double the number of batteries to achieve 14kwh of usable power for 28kwh of total capacity. At that capacity level, you would need only 9 batteries for a sub total of just $180 USD (including shipping.) Lets proceed with these calculations and say that you also want a good quality "grid-tie" "pure sine wave" inverter (to feed your stored energy back to your home grid) which will set you back any where from $100 - $1000. Your total cost for energy storage is still only going to be around $1180 (worse case.) Now consider that the life time for the Tesla batteries and standard AGM batteries seem to be very similar and I honestly have no idea what the customer is actually paying for. Is the compact size and sleek appearance really worth the extra cost to the customer? Maybe it is. Maybe people don’t want to have a nerdy battery bank in their homes but to me the benefits all seem a little petty. (Granted, I definitely do see the benefit for tech like this in electric cars though, don’t get me wrong.)
- oasisbob 10y agoSource for that battery pricing? Seems WAY optimistic. Given the weight + hazardous materials in an AGM, I can't see shipping hitting $15/unit unless you're talking about a container full.
- beambot 10y agoAre you sure about those shipping costs to a residential address...? Professional installation? Process and guarantees from a reputable American OEM? Breakdowns and warranties? I think you're missing a lot of costs beyond the raw materials...
- botty_throwaway 10y agoRegarding professional installation, those costs are not factored into the base price. It's an additional cost to both parent's DIY method and the Powerwall. As for reputable warranties against breakdowns, please check out the fine print of the Powerwall warranty terms and conditions. It's a '10 year warranty' with some very special legalese baked inside that may make you reconsider the cost premium commanded by guarantees provided by a company very adept at lawyering up and navigating regulation. The warranty (at least in North America) has provisions for voiding warranty claims in off-grid scenarios: during the entire period from installation to claim you must have constant access to the Internet for remote updates. If Tesla detects you go offline, they reserve the right to deny your claim. In addition, if you use the Powerwall for additional applications besides self-consumption of solar power, you're capped at 18 MWh aggregate throughput before the claim is denied. Consider a 6 KWh solar installation for 5 hours daily charging, with the purpose of selling back energy to the grid (not classified as self-consumption). Now also realize that since this is aggregate throughput, all the charging, smoothing, and then discharging to the grid takes 2x the throughput. How many days warranty do you end up getting from this '10 year warranty'? 18 MWh / (6 KWh * 5 * 2) = _300 days_. Finally, the warranty specifically says how they may choose your compensation. Could be an outdated refurbished model, but could also be cash market value of a similar system at the date of claim. Given the exponential rate of dwindling costs for energy storage, that's a gamble that in a few years your warranty may just pay out a tiny fraction of what you originally invested in you were sold a lemon. Tying the luxury price premium to guarantees feels very reminiscent of smartphone insurance... which is almost never a good buy. I'm with parent, let's just be honest here: you're paying for luxury markup -- sexy compact design and a good story.
- nimish 10y agoArbitrage economy 7 in the uk-- halve your electricity orice. Not bad at all....
- Annatar 10y agoSo I used the calculator on Tesla's web site, in my case, I'd want 3 powerwalls and I'd want a solar installation to complement it: $18,000 USD. That's still way too high: $1,800 - $2,500 would have been acceptable. That is how much I'm willing to pay for some solar panels, three batteries, and a little bit of electronics (processed sand) to control the lot. As far as I'm concerned, this is all still hype. Prices need to go down, waaayyy down, and the profit margin and the engineering needs to be recuperated through volume. The days of fat profit margins and the early adopters amortizing the research and development have come and gone. The computer industry learned that lesson the hard way; it would be a shame if Mr. Musk repeated the same mistake, instead of learning from history.
- maxerickson 10y agoA more interesting metric might be months of pay back time. $1,800-$2,500 seems like an arbitrary number you made up. Like if your power bill averages $150 (I realize it probably doesn't) and you plan to stay in place for a few years, then something like 50*$150=$7500 is easy to consider and is much higher than the numbers you tossed out (that's just over 4 years to pay you back). I mean, I agree with the point you are implying, that people won't be overwhelmingly excited with solar until the payback goes below 2 or 3 years, but I think it also makes sense for longer payback times.
- Annatar 10y agoA more interesting metric might be months of pay back time. $1,800-$2,500 seems like an arbitrary number you made up. It is an arbitrary number I made up! Which part of that is how much I am willing to pay requires additional clarification? I mean, I agree with the point you are implying, that people won't be overwhelmingly excited with solar until the payback goes below 2 or 3 years, That's exactly right, and more: I am not willing to amortize their research and development costs outright. That's something Tesla (or any other company, for that matter) will have to do over years, at least as far as my wallet is concerned. Amortizing research & development costs outright is just pure greed; I won't support it.
- 10y ago
- dabeeeenster 10y ago"Powerwall uses an internal inverter to convert DC energy to the AC energy required for your home, lowering cost and complexity." Does this mean that you don't need to buy a regular solar array inverter if you are deploying it with a new solar installation?
- anthay 10y agoI was pleasantly surprised to see prices quoted in £GBP - the Powerwall is available in the UK! But, we don't have enough sunlight here to run a typical house off-grid year-round, do we?
- Brakenshire 10y agoIn the UK we get about a quarter of the incident energy from sunlight in Winter than we do in Summer. You could do it by overbuilding your solar array by 4 times over what's required in Summer. That might actually be reasonable if solar prices carry on going down. Or you could do it by having some sort of micro-CHP system which produced electricity and then uses the waste heat to heat the house. But, yeah, I think this is the major outstanding issue with renewables at the moment. Solar with battery storage looks like it will get parity with the grid anywhere near the equator, where you don't need seasonal storage. The UK needs additional solutions. I think we should be putting more money into developing micro-CHP personally. British Gas were trying out a Sterling engine system a few years back, there are also some in development using Fuel Cells.
- hanoz 10y agoIn the UK a lot of people are on tariffs which pay them above market rate for the electricity they generate regardless of whether they feed it into the grid or use it themselves. A battery like this will allow them to both sell and use 100% of what they generate.
- IanCal 10y agoYou could possibly also reduce your costs by using an economy7 meter and only charging the powerwall over night (assuming you can set times on it).
- TillE 10y agoGermany is at a similar latitude to England/Wales, and they've been investing a ton in solar. It's certainly less efficient, but still worthwhile.
- DvdGiessen 10y agoFor those who are looking for something similar but (being the kind of people who read HN) would like something more configurable and hackable, you might check out the products of Victron Energy[0]. They've also have an optional remote management portal[1] which allows you to set up and monitor everything remotely for years now, and most the software running locally on the devices is open source and fully modifiable (such setups are even supported!). Full disclosure: I'm one of the developers of the mentioned Remote Management portal. [0]: https://www.victronenergy.com/ https://www.victronenergy.com/ [1]: https://vrm.victronenergy.com/ https://vrm.victronenergy.com/
- gregn610 10y agoX-post from reddit as it might get an answer here... http://m.imgur.com/pgskG9q?r http://m.imgur.com/pgskG9q?r This LNG ship got me wondering about a battery equivalent, charged up in a desert solar farm and shipped to a major city. I get 16 Powerpacks per 40ft container 5100 containers per Panamax ship =81600 powerpacks per ship At 95kWh per pack = 7752MWh per ship ( based on powerpack v1) So is that like two Hinckley C nuclear reactors worth of energy? How long would that last before having to go back for recharging? How long would it take to charge from a massive solar farm etc etc. so many questions but basically, is it remotely viable?
- pjc50 10y agoIt's not "two Hinckley C nuclear reactors worth of energy" unless you confuse MW and MWh. 7752MWh per ship = two hours of Hinckley C.
- Two9A 10y agoFully Charged interviewed the CEO of SunAmp recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9upXeTMHUqE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9upXeTMHUqE One of their new projects is to ship heat, stored in phase-change material, from a generation plant to central Bristol on a barge full of SunAmp cells. So it's a similar concept, shipping heat batteries instead of Powerpacks.
- sfblah 10y agoLithium Ion batteries lose charge over time, so during transport they would discharge. Lithium Ion batteries can handle a relatively small number of recharge cycles (when compared with the number that a metal cylinder/sphere can handle when just filling it up with LNG)
- mcbits 10y agoAnother way to approach the question is to compare the energy density of LNG to Lithium-ion batteries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density You'd need about 10-20x more shipments of the same volume or 50-100x more shipments of the same weight to transport the same quantity of energy.
- superfx 10y agoDoes anyone know where the video was filmed? It looks like it might be a neighborhood in the Bay Area.
- crb 10y agoThe "Colonial Street" set at Universal Studios in Burbank, California. Most famous as the set of Desperate Housewives. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_Street https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_Street
- sambe 10y agoI'm not following the calculations, maybe I'm sleepy. "can power a two-bedroom home for a full day". They say that is 20kWh (it doesn't change when you say sockets vs entire home...). They say the battery is 14kWh and only recommend one. Huh?
- Dowwie 10y agoI'm very impressed by the solar roof shingles, especially the French slate style.
- mrfusion 10y ago@elonmusk Just a thought. How about A prebuilt shed built with these shingles might make a good product. A lot of people buy prebuilt sheds and if it only cost $x extra and you could start lowering your electric bill.
- dabeeeenster 10y agoYou also need the inverter etc etc. So unless it was a big shed, maybe its not viable?
- mrfusion 10y agoGood point. I'd imagine you could charge an electric car without an inverter. Perhaps it could be just for that purpose. Bury a line running to your garage.
- dabeeeenster 10y agoWould it not make more sense to make houses DC?
- DeBraid 10y agoMany Powerwall 2's can be combined to reach potentially unlimited scale. Tesla working with SCE to build an 80 mWh Powerwall 2 stack. Utility power required to partner with local generators. Bright future for both rooftop and Big Utility. Solar Roofs Solar roofs superior to normal roof? Can they look better and costs less. Maybe. Make solar panels look like roof shingles. A textured glass tile contains/covers (?) the solar cells. Hydrographic printing allows each tile to look unique, so the roof/house looks beautiful. No two roofs will be the same. From street-level, it looks opaque, but is transparent to Sun.
- Dowwie 10y agoI suspect that Tesla will exponentially improve the capacity and performance of these Powerwall units every couple of years.
- mathgeek 10y agoExactly the reason that many people are wise to hold off on installations. The long term cost savings are wasted if future products are exponentially better in the short term. Non-financial benefits aside, naturally.
- Gustomaximus 10y agoA bit late to thread but; 1) I'm wondering why the tiles weren't larger? Wouldn't this make laying them much cheaper in a world where labor is such a significant cost for building. Aside from the shingle look I'm surprised these dont come in 1mx1m type sizes plus some smaller sizes for edges. I cant imaging this want discussed so curious if I'm missing some obvious logic here. 2) If you didn't have a ceiling would these let light through and further reduce electricity usage? 3) The cells seems to be a small proportion of the tile. Is this something they expect to increase so they will increase power generation ability significantly over future releases?